I have a ceiling fan /generator hack that does about one amp dc on a bicycle frame rig. This is to provid minimal lighting for remote villages in a mountainous area of the Philippines. The generator can be used both ac and dc. Ac is ran directly from the coils to a 40w florescent bulb while the dc is rectified for battery charging. With little electronics knowledge, I am groping for solutions to several problems:

1-Can capacitors in series or parallel smooth the ac voltage to the florescent bulb much the same as a wind up flashlight?

2-Is there a cheap device or simple circuit that inverts battery dc to ac for the 40w light?

 

Inverters are extremely common, and fairly efficient. They do need a stable source of DC, which sounds iffy for your setup.

You've mentioned current, and you mentioned watts, but the frequency and AC voltage was not mentioned.

 

The florescent bulb is 13w, 120v, 60Hz, 180mA. If possible, I would like to run this from a 12v car battery. I am rectifying the ac from the coils with a full bridge and capacitors to the battery. Can we simply convert the dc output from the battery to ac for the light? Running the light straight from the coils of the generator is obviously not a practical solution unless some kind of capacitor storage is possible (as in a wind up flash light).

 

If you're going to build a simple circuit yourself there are many online to choose from.
Here is an example of one I built in less than 1 hour, and it does work.
This is for a 40 watt tube or two 20 watt tubes
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/FluorescentInverter/FluorescentInverter.html

 

The inverter from Talking Electronics is for driving old fluorescent TUBES at a high voltage and high frequency, not for driving modern compact fluorescent LIGHT BULBS. The light bulbs have an electronic ballast inside that is driven from 120VAC/60Hz.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are sold for motor homes and boats and operate from a 12VDC battery.